1. Technical Field
The present invention is relates in general to data processing and more particularly to diagnostic testing of input/output (I/O) adapters of data processing systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
A typical client/server network includes one or more servers responding to requests of one or more clients. As broadly used in this context, a server is generally considered to be a collection of software, firmware and/or hardware or any combination of the foregoing that provide services to clients. Similarly, the term client is considered to be a collection of hardware, firmware and/or software or any combination of the foregoing that requests services from one or more servers. In accomplishing its primary function of providing services to its client(s), a server may function as a client of one or more other servers.
Servers connect to and communicate with resources, such as networks, data storage and peripheral devices, utilizing hardware devices known as input/output (I/O) adapters. Errors in or failure of I/O adapters can render the resources accessed via the I/O adapters unavailable to not only the server, but also the clients of the server. In many computing environments, such interruption of service is highly costly or unacceptable. Consequently, in order to promote reliability, correct errors and reduce the frequency of unexpected hardware failures, administrators of computer systems, such as high-end servers, frequently perform diagnostic testing on installed hardware, including I/O adapters.
With current diagnostic methods, the system administrator changes the state of an I/O adapter from a normal operating mode to a diagnostic mode in order to perform one or more diagnostic routines. Unfortunately, such diagnostic testing renders the associated resources unavailable to the server's clients, and if the I/O adapter is a network adapter, may render the entire server and all of its associated resources unavailable to the server's clients. If the I/O adapter undergoing diagnostic testing is a storage adapter, the system administrator may be required to shutdown the server entirely in order to perform the testing.
Because of the loss of service(s) attendant to diagnostic testing, system owners can be reluctant to schedule diagnostic testing. Moreover, because diagnostic testing does not always capture all of the real time hardware bugs present within the system, I/O adapters are often replaced even if the diagnostic testing certifies that the I/O adapters are working properly to reduce further system downtime.